Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what steps he is taking to (a) increase (a) building and (b) build quality throughout the country.

The Government has set out an ambitious package of long-term reform to make the housing market work. We are taking end-to-end action across the housing system with measures to: release more land for homes where people want to live, build the homes we need faster, get more people building homes, and support people who need help now. We have committed more than £44 billion of financial support over five years to 2022/2023 to boost the delivery of housing and unblock barriers to more housebuilding.

We are also committed to ensuring that new homes are of good quality. In 2018, we announced a dedicated ombudsman for buyers of new homes and we intend to introduce legislation to require developers of new build homes to belong to a New Homes Ombudsman. The revised National Planning Policy Framework places a strong emphasis on design and makes clear that developments should be visually attractive and add to the overall quality of the area.

Our interventions are making a difference. Last year 222,190 homes were delivered, the highest in all but one of the last thirty years. This year numbers are expected to rise again, representing the 7^th consecutive year of growth.